WinMX - a p2p revolution?
In 2005 the creators of the WinMX file sharing application allegedly under pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), shut down the WinMX peer cache servers used to connect users to the network. Millions of users were left stranded and unable to connect. The WinMX network provides not only the ability to share files and media with other users but an interesting and diverse chat community used by thousands.
Perhaps the music cartel did not really research what WinMX was all about, whilst it’s true there would have been hundreds of thousands of casual users, there was also a core community of users. Many of these users were loyal to WinMX and could be found on the diverse chat community on WinMX. These users understandably were rather unhappy at having their community shut down and fought to get it back. Three years on the community is steadily uniting and has recently launched a new WinMX Community patch aimed at improving the WinMX experience for all users.
As with many p2p networks, WinMX is suffering from an ongoing effort by agents employed by the Riaa to disrupt the network with floods of fakes files. Unlike other networks WinMX is fighting back, active teams regularly scan the network identifying flooders and ensuring they are quickly blocked from the network. The WinMX community has had much success with this tactic, but this new WinMX Community patch aims to take this fight to the finish and kick the unwanted flooders clean off the network with a host of great features including:
1 - The WinMX Community Patch will offer WinMX Peer Network Specific blocking as a built in feature to ensure users bandwidth is not used to flood other users of the network with fake files and such, this will no doubt be a big blow to those cartel led forces that would rather bombard user?s connections with fake file floods.
2 - The WinMX Community Patch also features a filtering system that ensures any fake files placed on the network by flooders are not displayed so your time is not wasted, a rather handy feature that ensures any fake files that do make it through the blocking are removed from users search results.
3 - Eagle the WinMX Community Patch writer is a trusted neutral person and has offered the same Patch for all major WinMX communities to use, bringing a new level of unity to the community. This is important to ensure the community can move forward together in repelling the flooding attacks and keeping the network clean and enticing for new users.
4 - Rapid connection times, connections are now in seconds rather than minutes using some older solutions, this will make the network more appealing for new users.
5 - Universal plug and play (UPNP) compatibility to allow for automatic router setups for routers supporting the UPNP system, ideal for ensuring beginners quickly and easily get the online.
6 - DLL patch preference system removed, ensuring the network is as fully integrated as possible.
A few years ago WinMX was the Ferari of p2p with a network boasting over 1million simultaneous users, since the shut-down of the cache servers at Frontcode technology, the number has been understandably less, but make no mistake it’s far from gone. The fact is user numbers are back up around 500,000, although not all simultaneous this is certainly far from a dead network. The WinMX community is standing strong and taking the fight to the cartel, this is truly David vs Goliath battle, and right now David is winning hands down!